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STUNNED
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
In a state of mental numbness especially as resulting from shock
Example:
was stupid from fatigue
Synonyms:
dazed; stunned; stupefied; stupid
Classified under:
Similar:
confused (mentally confused; unable to think with clarity or act intelligently)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Knocked unconscious by a heavy blow
Synonyms:
kayoed; knocked out; KO'd; out; stunned
Classified under:
Similar:
unconscious (not conscious; lacking awareness and the capacity for sensory perception as if asleep or dead)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Filled with the emotional impact of overwhelming surprise or shock
Example:
stunned scientists found not one but at least three viruses
Synonyms:
amazed; astonied; astonished; astounded; stunned
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
surprised (taken unawares or suddenly and feeling wonder or astonishment)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Past simple / past participle of the verb stun
Context examples:
However, the bird, who had only been stunned, recovering himself gave me so many boxes with his wings, on both sides of my head and body, though I held him at arm’s-length, and was out of the reach of his claws, that I was twenty times thinking to let him go.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
Hunter lay beside his loophole, stunned; Joyce by his, shot through the head, never to move again; while right in the centre, the squire was supporting the captain, one as pale as the other.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Hans and Edith were stunned.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Each man seemed stunned—deeply contemplative, as it were, and, not quite sure, trying to realize just what had taken place.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
It was a revelation that stunned him.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
And so, amid shouting and cheering, our fate was decided, and I found myself borne away in the human current which swirled towards the door, with my mind half stunned by the vast new project which had risen so suddenly before it.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Fanny was almost stunned.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
I was not stunned by the praise which sounded in my ears, notwithstanding that I was keenly alive to it, and thought better of my own performance, I have little doubt, than anybody else did.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
In the final bout, however, Sir Nigel struck his opponent with so true an aim that the point of the lance caught between the bars of his vizor and tore the front of his helmet out, while the German, aiming somewhat low, and half stunned by the shock, had the misfortune to strike his adversary upon the thigh, a breach of the rules of the tilting-yard, by which he not only sacrificed his chances of success, but would also have forfeited his horse and his armor, had the English knight chosen to claim them.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Finally, finding him proof against every threat, they had hurled him back into his prison, and after reproaching Melas with his treachery, which appeared from the newspaper advertisement, they had stunned him with a blow from a stick, and he remembered nothing more until he found us bending over him.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
